The ‘Wal-Mart-ization’ of voice service

Will contacting your local and long-distance carrier (or even your cable or VoIP provider) for a voice service hook-up soon become a thing of the past?

It could be, if the growing number of companies providing voice alternative products -- in a wide array of approaches and form functions, most of which plug not into the wall but into your broadband data service -- have any say.

When we say products, we mean just that. These enabling devices are things you can pick up at the store and install yourself. Sure, you still need to have DSL or cable data service to make them work, but beyond that, buying voice service may soon feel more like picking up cleaning supplies at Target or buying an MP3 player at Best Buy than the traditional process of ordering a service install through your local carrier. (Of course, you can buy Vonage in a store -- but Vonage still feels like a service in terms of pricing and customer support.)

This week, several interesting new “product-based” approaches to voice service emerged. Our Editor-in-Chief, Carol Wilson, wrote about Magic Jack, a USB device that plugs directly into a PC and a phone and auto-configures itself to provide VoIP over a broadband connection. The cost: just $40 at the store and $19.95 a year to renew for unlimited calling.

Meanwhile, Telephony’s Kevin Fitchard wrote about Sprint jointing T-Mobile offering an in-home cell-service extender box (T-Mobile uses Wi-Fi; Sprint, femtocells) to let users make unlimited calls using their existing cell phone. The cost: $50 for the box and $15 per month for service.

Finally, today, the much-hyped Ooma will begin officially selling its $399 gadget for making voice calls over broadband data services, kicking it off with a (hopefully viral) YouTube advertising campaign produced by actor/Punk’d star Ashton Kutcher. (Note: it’s not viral quite yet -- at mid-day the clip had one user comment.)

Already, many customers are used to buying pay-per-use cell phones or calling cards in retail and convenience stores. Will picking up a “voice-service-in-a-box” product at the local Wal-Mart be soon behind? Success or failure, it seems, depends as much on the evolution of customer behavior as it does the evolution of technology enabling the trend.

What do you think? Will consumers like the convenience -- and promised cost savings? Or, are they being shortsighted in potentially losing 911 and other services, not to mention “five 9s” voice reliability? What will the future of residential voice service look like?

Shoot me an email at rkarpinski@telephonyonline.com with your thoughts. We’ll publish the best feedback in a follow-up column.